LANSI Virtual Lecture Presents Richard Ogden

We are delighted to announce that Richard Ogden from University of York will be giving a talk titled "Audibly not Saying Something with Clicks" on Friday, March 26, from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm EST. This two-hour talk will include break-out sessions and participatory work examining data together. See below for the registration link, an abstract and Professor Ogden's bio. 

Abstract 

This talk explores the use of clicks—a nonverbal vocalization—in everyday talk. I'll argue that clicks are one way of not saying something, i.e., of not producing talk when talk was due. While many clicks occur alongside verbal material, which provides a method for participants to ascribe an action to the turn in which they are embedded, many do not. The talk explores the linguistic (especially phonetic), sequential and embodied resources available to participants to make sense of such clicks. I will argue that some clicks have properties of linguistic organization: they have non-arbitrary form-meaning map- pings. Other clicks by contrast are interpreted more as ad hoc, singular events. 

The talk will involve some participatory work on producing and recognising clicks, and break-outs to talk about data together. Data are in British and American English from audio and video.

Please note: some of the data extracts contain material that you might find offensive, with references to sex, drinking, body parts and examples of sexism. (These seem to be endemic to the phenomenon of not saying something.)

Speaker's Bio

Richard Ogden is Professor Linguistics at the University of York. His work explores the significance of phonetic detail in conversation. He has published on voice quality and turn-taking in Finnish; intonation; assessments; complaints; and most recently, clicks. He is author of a textbook, An Introduction to English Phonetics, which is mostly based on conversational data. He is currently working on swallowing in conversation.